Dead Poets Society/Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye and Dead Poets Society are very similar stories. Both deal with the coming of age in the lives of prestigious young men. These two stories also deal with the conformity of these young men in their transition from private boys school to the real world. There are two young men from each of the stories whose lives are alike yet different in some ways. Holden Caufield and Neil Perry are two young men coming of age searching for who they are and what they want to be in life and wanting to escape the confines of conformity and what they are expected to be.

Both are the same age or around the same age and they are both students at upscale private schools for boys. They both come from fairly wealthy families whose parents are estranged in one way or another. In Dead Poets Society Keating urges his students to seize the day and that is sort of what Holden does when he goes off wandering the streets of New York when he is kicked out of school. Neil seizes the day when he decides to go against his father’s demands and acts in the play. Both stories also emphasize the trueness of one’s character.

Holden Caufield is a troubled young man. He has been kicked out of prep school for the third time. He alienates himself from his peers and the world around him. I think Holden fails every class except English not because he is not smart, but because he doesn’t want to be like everyone else or what is expected of him. He feels most people are phony but in a way Holden is a phony too. He says cruel things about people such as Ackley yet he still want to be around and hang out with him.

If one dislikes a person so much yet still wants to be in his presence that is a phony trait. He stresses the fact that he hates movies yet he talks about going to catch a movie every chance he gets and he even acts out his own movie scenes. He makes up an entire lie about who he is to Earnest’s mother on the train and tells her lies about her own son. He is also a loving person so to speak. He really cares about other people like when he would hide his fancy expensive suitcase just because he didn’t want the other guy in his dorm to feel bad about his old cheap suitcase.

He is becoming an adult yet he wants to preserve his innocence, for he believes adults are phony and children such as his sister Phoebe, preserve true realness within their innocent selves. I think he wants to preserve the innocence that children have and protect them, something he failed at doing with his brother Allie, which is why he wants to be the Catcher in the Rye. Neil Perry is also a troubled young man within himself because he doesn’t want to conform to the life his father wants for him. Neil wants to be his own person and to the things he likes to do but he is afraid to stand up to his father.

His father is a phony conformist such as Holden describes his father in Catcher in the Rye. Neil’s father makes him quit the school paper because one of his teachers wants him to, when Neil tries to stand up for himself, his father scolds him and tells him when he graduates medical school he can do what he wants, until then, he must obey what his father tells him. When he does finally do what he wants, when he finally incorporates the ‘’carpe diem’’ phrase into his life and made the decision for himself to act in the play, his father decides to take him out of Welton and send him to military school.

Neil felt the only to break his father’s shackles was to kill himself. I think that Neil felt that he couldn’t bare living with himself for rebelling against his father nor could he live the life his father wanted for him. He wanted the freedom to choose and be supported by his parents with whatever he decided but, he knew he would not have that. Both of the characters have estranged parents, but they are estranged in different ways. Holden’s parents seem to never be around or even interested in him. He describes his father as a phony who spends his money on Broadway plays and only concerned with appearances. ut Holden seems to be afraid of his father also which is why he dreads going home after being kicked out of Pency. His believes his mother’s aloofness is due to her never getting over Allie’s death. Neil’s parents are in his life, but they are oblivious to Neil’s feelings. They have no idea what it is that Neil wants and desires for himself or the effect of being forced to things he does not want to do is having on him. These stories are quite similar in many ways. They are two stories which took place around the same time, about coming of age, conformity.

Holden resists conformity on his own and ventures off to New York alone searching for something, for who he is. Neil was inspired by Keating to break free but, explore this conformist society. Neil knew what it was that he wanted to do with his life, he wanted to act but that was an unacceptable way of life in his family. Holden didn’t seem to have any true friends except his 10 year old sister Phobe. She was the only person he really liked and could talk to. Neil had friends at Welton who took a stand for him at the end. These are two characters who have lived very similar lives with some differences that I think most of us can relate to.

Author: Allan Leider

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